Brent Sadler

Ever since the Tiananmen Square massacre in June of 1989, they've shifted their legitimacy to, we will provide you richer and better prosperity.

Just cede to us all of your personal liberties and freedoms.

And that bargain has been working until,

fairly recently and xi jinping has been clamping down so that gives them the other argument of legitimacy we're the only ones that are going to be able to reunify china and end this foreign domination that those are their words not mine because there's a lot that historically is incorrect in their narrative but to them failing to unify or end the civil war with the kuomintang

and basically forcefully bring Taiwan back into the fold means the death of the Chinese Communist Party.

It's arguable if that actually is what's going to happen, but that's their thinking.

The other part of this is that with Taiwan as an exemplar of a Chinese democratic society that has a very vibrant, free, and open market,

It's a huge market player with the United States and the globe.

It sends a signal that a communist China is not the only way forward for Chinese people.

So it is in many ways what Berlin was to the Soviet Union.

Taiwan is to Beijing today.

So a couple of things.

One is to be very careful about mirroring American values or what we would think.

We're trying to figure out and anticipate the Chinese Communist Party's behavior.

Prosperity for their people is not really the objective.

It's party survival and party dominance.

And so if their economy takes a hit,

or their people's quality of life deteriorates.

As long as they can maintain party control, they don't care.

It's a very cold, calculating communist system.